


One step forward, two steps back

by UnderlandsCreator



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Loss, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-04
Updated: 2015-04-04
Packaged: 2018-03-21 05:32:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3679776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnderlandsCreator/pseuds/UnderlandsCreator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How does one cope with the loss of a mother? The answer is, not well. A story of dealing with loss, or at least, trying too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One step forward, two steps back

All through the visit to her grave, you thought you were alright, but as you walk down the hallway leading to her room, your every step is a struggle, and it’s almost as if you’re walking in cement. You’ve walked this same path hundreds of times, but today is different, and it feels like your whole body is trying to stop you from getting any closer. But nothing lasts forever, and eventually you’re at her door.

 Standing at the threshold of her room, the feeling suddenly hits you with all the force of a speeding train. You miss your mother, _so_ much, and it  _hurts._  An ache like a phantom limb, pain that you know is there, but can't do anything to get rid of. There is no pill to numb the pain, and time, despite popular opinion, does  _not_ heal all wounds.

 You sit in her room, and surround yourself with her fading scent, sink your face into her pillow and inhale. For a moment, it feels like she is still with you, but then the moment is broken when you feel the tears running down your face. This little fact is what lets you know that she really _is_ gone, because when she was still with you, she never let you cry.

You sit up after what feels like forever, and take a look around her room. Everything is the same as the day she went to the hospital, untouched, and you think that that somehow makes everything worse. How could everything look the same, seem the same, when you’re living in a world that she isn’t in? The sky is falling, but the world is still, and you feel sick to your stomach. You can’t…you have to leave. You get off the bed, and stumble to the door on unsteady legs. You feel like you’re drowning, in loss, in grief, in pain, and you have to get _out._

You finally manage to open the door, but when you get into the hallway, it seems to stretch on for _miles._ You take the first step, and somehow manage to take a second one, and before you know it you’ve reached the stairs. The lights are off, and standing at the top of the steps looking down, it feels like you’re staring into the void. You barely give it a second glance before you’re rushing down the stairs, because you still can’t _breathe_ , and you would gladly enter the void, face down the unknown, if it meant getting away from her room.

Your feet seem to lead you straight to the front door as soon as you come off the last step, and you don’t bother trying to change direction, because maybe you’ll finally get some air if you go outside. You open the front door, and as the cold air hits you, you breathe in. It’s like breaking the water’s surface after free diving for as deep, and as long as you can.

You brace your hands on the porch railing, but even though you can breathe now, there’s still pressure on your chest, an unrelenting push on your shoulders, weighing you down. The same pressure, and force, and _weight,_ that’s been there for almost a year, ever since you first heard that, despite being cared for by the best doctors in the country, your mother still couldn’t be saved.

You want to hate them, and a part of you does, but a bigger part of you realizes that, sometimes life isn’t fair, and that the good die young. Your mother didn’t deserve to die, and you didn’t deserve to lose her. But, you think as you look up at the stars, what should happen, and what _does_ happen are rarely the same. Sometimes you simply have to live through what life throws at you, even when it seems like that is impossible, and everyday feels like the world is ending.


End file.
